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Ruth Hurst says she was badly mistreated by a Para Transpo driver and that one of her handcycles was damaged.Photo by Errol McGihon/ Postmedia

A Para Transpo customer is calling on the city to provide more training to a bus operator she says hurled insensitive statements at her and damaged her special mobility equipment.

Ruth Hurst said the incident began Aug. 1 at around 8 p.m., as she waited for her scheduled Para Transpo ride home after her weekly handcycle class at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum.

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Hurst has limited use of her legs and arms. She can walk short distances and stand briefly, however she still uses a wheelchair, which she had that evening along with her $13,000 handcycle.

“He came out of the bus and he said, ‘I don’t even want to deal with you,’ ” Hurst said. “And he snatches up the bike by the cables, and with that he shoved the bike at this other lady who was standing beside her van.”

The manhandling of the tricycle-like vehicle damaged the front wheel’s fork and some cables, Hurst alleges.

The driver subsequently refused to help her load the handcycle and strap it down in the bus, she said. It was ultimately another member of her handcycle club that volunteered to help her load the trike and her wheelchair onto the bus, she said.

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“We kept trying to show him, saying, ‘Look, it’s not a big deal,’ and thought maybe he’s just nervous for handling something he’s not used to handling. That wasn’t the case. He was just very aggressive and very rude.”

Once on-board and en route to her home in Kanata, Hurst said, the driver was relatively calm and quiet until he dropped off the only other passenger on board.

“As soon as the bus driver dropped the man off, he started up again, saying, ‘You’re the worst person I’ve ever had to deal with. I hope I never have to pick you up again,’ ” Hurst said.

“I’ve only seen him twice in my life and both times he was ranting and raving,” she added, referring to a brief experience she’d had with him a few weeks prior.

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“When we got to the house, he didn’t open the door to let me out. He just paced up and down, yelling for quite a while, which was disturbing,” Hurst said.

“I told him to be quiet and to call his supervisor if there was an issue — clearly there was an issue — and he stomps to the front of the bus, snatches the phone off the cradle and he yells at the person, ‘She told me to shut up!’ “

The operator didn’t lower the bus or untie her handcycle and wheelchair from their safety straps, Hurst said.

“He didn’t do his job, basically.”

Eventually, he lowered the ramp but still refused to help unload Hurst’s equipment, she said.

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“I had to struggle to untie everything myself and to unload everything, and I got the wheelchair unloaded, came back, got the handcycle unloaded and the guy was sitting at the back of the bus doing crossword puzzles from the newspaper. And I thought, ‘This is just wrong.’ “

After getting inside her home, Hurst said the operator remained parked outside for more than an hour, sitting in the driver’s seat and looking into her house. “That was disturbing.”

After her encounter, Hurst said she filed a complaint with OC Transpo.

Troy Charter, assistant general manager of transit operations, confirmed that the city had completed an investigation into Hurst’s complaint. However, he said he could not discuss its details due to privacy concerns.

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“I can say it was about how an operator interacted with (Hurst) and her mobility device that she used, and that’s what we’ve looked at and investigated,” Charter said.

“We take all these complaints seriously, and we expect that all our customers are treated with the utmost respect and dignity. When we need to take corrective action, we do.”

While Charter confirmed that the investigation was completed, he said he could not comment on who the operator was and if there was any action taken against him by OC Transpo.

For now, the cost to fix the handcycle, which is at a repair shop, is unknown, Hurst said. She added that she was advised by OC Transpo employees to file a claim with the city’s claims department, but she said she hadn’t done so because of the “frustrating” process involved.

“I called the city and they told me I had to do it online. It’s very frustrating — you go through a lot of hoops for nothing and I got frustrated and said, ‘I’ll just hire a lawyer to deal with it.’ “

Hurst said she’s upset about the way she was treated but added that she wouldn’t want to see the operator get fired over it.